


Far Across the Distance

by A_Diamond



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blimps & Dirigibles, Class Differences, Forced Marriage, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Secret Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, Titanic Fusion, Zeppelin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: The AASBeaconis the biggest zeppelin the world has ever seen, a marvel of modern engineering. It boasts a dozen decks, four restaurants and cafes in addition to the dining rooms, baths and a gymnasium and an honest-to-God swimming pool. Two men board it for the same reason: to journey to a new life in New York. But while Stiles looks forward to a second chance, Derek dreads his upcoming marriage to a woman he can’t love.When they meet, it will change the course of both their lives forever.





	Far Across the Distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agrusahale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrusahale/gifts).



> I hope this fits what you were looking for, agrusahale, even though I couldn't fit in all the points of your prompt.
> 
> All the thanks in the world to superhoney for a remarkable and speedy beta!

Stiles couldn’t stop himself from loosing a low whistle as he walked up the gangplank to the AAS _Beacon_ , stunned at the size of the airship up close. Scott nudged him with a painful elbow, embarrassed at the low-class exclamation, but he was just lucky Stiles held back the impressed curses that wanted to come with it. _Beacon_ was the biggest zeppelin the world had ever seen, a marvel of modern engineering. It boasted a dozen decks, four restaurants and cafes in addition to the dining rooms, baths and a gymnasium and an honest-to-God swimming pool.

Of course, those were all for the fancy rich folks in first class. The ones who were boarding on the upper ramps with porters to carry their piles of luggage, whereas he and Scott had to shoulder their own bags, one apiece, up one of the much narrower walkways to the third-class cabins. But even those accommodations were touted as the best available for the price, and considerably more than they could have afforded if Stiles hadn’t won the pair of tickets off an old friend. The kind of ‘friend’ he’d owed a lot of money to before their card game and was more than happy to not see again.

Never again; it hit Stiles that it was final, they were really leaving for good. He swallowed down the bitter aftertaste of that realization and focused on the hope. There was nothing left for either of them in California, not anymore, so starting over in New York was more of a chance than they ever expected. What did it matter that they barely had five dollars between them? They had each other and a whole new land of opportunity waiting for them. And they were gonna get there in style.

“Come on, Scotty,” he cheered, bumping their shoulders together and quickening his pace. “A brand new adventure, right? New York won’t know what hit it.”

“No one ever does, with you around. I’ve never seen Jackson so mad, I swear.”

Stiles laughed at the memory. “Really, I did him a favor, though. If he doesn’t know by now not to bet anything he can’t afford to lose, the big city would eat him alive.”

“But not us, right?”

“Never us.”

*

On a higher ramp, a firm hand against his back pushed Derek inexorably away from the life he knew and onto the _Beacon_. Once he was on the zeppelin, once it launched into the sky, he would be trapped. Stranded, first on the airship and then on the other side of the country, and bound in marriage to a woman he no longer loved. A woman who’d never really loved him.

He glanced back at the dock and could barely make out his family amid the bustling crowds, but when he did find them they were beaming and waving at him. They were happy; for him, because they still thought this was what he wanted, and for themselves, because the Argents’ money would solve all their business troubles.

The latter was the reason for the former, which he reminded himself even before Peter shoved him pointedly, enough to make him pay attention but not stumble, and whispered low in his ear, “It’s too late for that. If you wanted to have regrets, dear nephew, the time for that ought to have been before you risked ruin on all of us. You’ll be a dutiful son and a dutiful husband, and the savior of the Hale line by it.”

Derek swallowed roughly and turned to face his new life.

In a rare moment of gentleness, Peter’s touch softened and he added, “Your misery saves your sisters from sharing your fate. Hold onto that, when it gets difficult.”

 _Beacon_ ’s walls closed around them at the top of the ramp, bright sunshine replaced with pretty but artificial light from the electric lamps. He tried not to see it as an omen for what lay ahead.

*

The open-air gallery on A Deck was a promenade meant for first- and second-class, not the lower rabble. But the windowless room they shared with four strangers drove Stiles mad with restlessness after just two days, and the common room filled with smoke and the shrieks of confined children only made him want to shriek along with them.

So on the second night, when all respectable passengers were abed, he ignored Scott’s warnings and slipped the locked doors meant to keep him in his place. Ducking out of sight of the single crewman patrolling the corridors was easy, and from there he just had to navigate the long hallways until he came to the double doors marked in gilded script.

At first glance, it looked like he’d succeeded in catching the promenade unoccupied. The rush of cold wind felt like life itself after so much stale air and he leaned against the doors with his eyes closed to savor the first breath. It was only after opening them again that he noticed movement at the front of the deck. A man stood at the railing. No, not at—he was over the railing, on the wrong side, hanging on but looking down. Looking like he didn’t plan to be hanging on for very long.

Stiles didn’t want to witness the man’s suicide, but neither did he wish to startle him into falling by trying to attract his attention. Nor risk being pulled over himself while grabbing the man, who looked to have some bulk on him that Stiles lacked.

His need to decide was forestalled by the man’s unprompted acknowledgement of his presence. “Please, let me have a moment alone,” the man called without looking back. “If you come back in five minutes, the gallery will be cleared for whatever brings you here at this late hour.”

For all that his words were pretty and polite, his voice wavered; he was uncertain. He sounded young, not a child but barely a man, Stiles’s own age or not much more. Scared. It offered a shot at talking him down which Stiles leapt at.

“It’ll be clear because you’ve thrown yourself off it, is that the plan?”

After a brief, tense silence, the man agreed, “Yes. And I’d prefer to do it in solitude, if it’s all the same to you.”

“And if it’s not?”

“What?”

Stiles risked a few steps closer. The hard soles of his cheap shoes made more noise against the polished deck than a nicer pair might have, but his unwilling companion didn’t react. “What if it’s not all the same to me? Because I can tell you now, I’m really not inclined to leave you alone if that’s your intended result.”

“You can watch, then. I’m going to do it. You can’t stop me.”

It wasn’t the most convincing bluff, especially against Stiles. He was a master of lies, half-truths, and confidence games, had survived by them and earned his passage on the _Beacon_ by them, so he didn’t hesitate in calling the man on it. In fact, he raised the stakes further:

“Then I suppose there’s nothing for it,” he declared, closing the rest of the distance. Hands braced on the top bar, he started to climb the railing like a ladder a few few away from where the other man clung to it.

“What—”

The man turned his head and Stiles finally caught a glimpse of his face; young, like he’d predicted, with a strong jaw, a dimpled chin, and cheekbones that caught the glow of the lamp posts in a way that made the rest of his face look gaunt with shadows in comparison. Despite that, and despite the severity of his bewildered eyebrows, his was an appealing face. He was too attractive and young and well-off—Stiles could recognize quality clothing, even if he couldn’t afford it—to be contemplating ending his life.

“What are you doing?” the man asked, so affronted that Stiles struggled to choke down his laughter. As though he were the one being absurd, not the spoiled rich boy with a flair for dramatics.

“Getting ready. If you’re going to jump and I can’t stop you, I’ll just have to jump after you.”

“No!” The objection was loud even over the wind of the zeppelin’s movement whipping around them. “No, why would you do that?”

“Well, can you fly?”

Stiles had paused halfway up the railings when they first started discussing his plans, so he had a good vantage point to rest his forearms against the uppermost and watch the man struggle to make sense of that question. He watched Stiles as one would mind a lunatic, but his hands held their grip with white knuckles as he did so; he wouldn’t be letting go yet.

“Of course I can’t,” he answered finally.

“And you’re quite sure?”

The man’s brow furrowed in irritation. “Yes. That’s the whole point of—” His face shuttered and he looked away, back down into the dark emptiness below them. Stiles could almost see him slipping away as he remembered what he was there for, and he struggled to keep his tone light even as he dreaded watching those fingers loosen their grip.

“Well,” he said, “there you have it. I don’t know for sure that I can’t fly, which means I’ve at least got a better chance than you. So I’m going to try and catch you and then, if we’re lucky, fly us back up here.”

His gambit worked; he had the man’s attention and annoyed confusion centered on him again. After an interminably long wait for the man to get his thoughts in order, wherein Stiles couldn’t stop darting a look at his hands every second breath just to be sure they weren’t slipping, he said, “You’re either mad or stupid. Even if you believed that, you’ve no reason to risk yourself for a stranger.”

“They call me Stiles.” When nothing was forthcoming in return, he prompted, “Now you give me your name, and we’re no longer strangers.”

“Derek.”

It was said so softly that Stiles could barely hear it over the wind, but hear it he did; it sounded like progress, like a chance for him go for the whole pot. He wanted it finished, with Derek back on the solid floors of the _Beacon_ , not hovering over oblivion.

“Thank you, Derek,” he said. “Now it’s true I don’t know you that well. But I do know you a bit, enough that the thought of you plummeting to your death upsets me far too much to allow it. So any chance I can take to stop it, I will. If I fail, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to have the shock of the fall knock us out before we break on the ground. Because if we don’t die on impact, it’ll be agony to lie there, cold and mangled, waiting for death to claim us.”

Pale, Derek looked down once more; no longer longing but trepidatious.

“Derek.” Stiles dropped back onto the deck, glad to have his feet firmly planted, and held out his hand over the railing. “Let’s skip the whole thing, yeah?”

When Derek looked him over, he had to see that Stiles was in no way his peer. He was nothing but an orphan who’d lucked his way into the historical passage, who clearly had no business in the gallery meant for proper folks, who was taking an unforgivable liberty even talking to someone of Derek’s standing.

Derek took his hand.

*

When Derek got back to the cabin, heart still racing with the combined madness of what he’d almost done and what he had done, Peter was waiting with a single lamp turned up. It took him longer than it ought to have to notice the light and his uncle’s stormy features; he was too lost in chasing the feel of Stiles’s kiss on his lips with his fingertips. It had been so brief, and yet—

“And where did you run off to?”

Starting guiltily, Derek dropped his hand away from his mouth, though doubtless he was too late for Peter’s keen observation. But he said nothing further.

“I needed some fresh air to clear my head. I went for a walk on the viewing deck.”

Peter watched him remove his jacket and vest, sharp eyes peering as inscrutably into Derek’s soul as they ever did, but again he failed to comment on the shaking of Derek’s fingers as he fumbled more than one button. Rather, he switched off his lamp and left Derek to dress for sleep in the dark.

The soft sheets felt more welcoming, less confining than they had the night before. He wondered what sort of bed Stiles was slipping into at that moment, if the beds in third class were as comfortable as the ones in first. They couldn’t possibly be, but he still hoped they were nice, that Stiles’s bed was better than he was used to and he could rest peacefully on it. It was the very least he deserved for saving Derek’s life.

For not being revolted when Derek gave in to the foolish, dangerous, life-affirming impulse to kiss him.

For kissing Derek back.

“Don’t get caught.”

Peter’s words shocked him from his reverie for a second time that night. In the darkness it was impossible to see over to the other bed, and Derek couldn’t imagine what expression might have been on his uncle’s face.

“I won’t try and deny you your last hurrah. I don’t suspect I could stop you if I tried, short of locking you in here for the rest of the journey, and that would be far too exhausting. Have your fun, find what peace and happiness you can in the next few days, and may it be enough to last you through a lifetime. Because when we arrive in New York, it ends and you leave with your fiancée. So: for God’s sake, don’t get caught.”

There was nothing for Derek to do but feign sleep, helpless to reply to the blend of accusation and reluctant encouragement in his uncle’s statement. Even that wasn’t enough to smother his euphoria; when he did drift off at last, he dreamed of Stiles and his kisses.

In the morning, Peter said nothing more on the subject; only he perhaps he did: “We’re not expected by the Argents until the evening. I think I’ll spend the day making acquaintances in the lounge, so you’ll have to find your own entertainment. I don’t need you moping about and spoiling my business prospects.”

Derek wasted no time in following the suggestion. He wanted to avoid being dragged into the questionable ethics of Peter’s business dealings nearly as much as he wanted to see Stiles again; after all, it was the money Peter had lost their family that necessitated his marriage to Kate. But Derek was the one who’d been caught up in her trap, fooled by her affectation of fondness into agreeing to a marriage, so he was the one stuck with the consequences.

He dressed and fled before Peter had a chance to change his mind.

The trouble, after that, was that he hadn’t the first idea how to find Stiles once he was on his own. The _Beacon_ held so many passengers on so many decks, and the divisions between him and Stiles were as physical as they were societal; the stairways between the spaces designated for third class and the rest of the airship were kept locked. Derek lacked both the skill and the courage to attempt circumventing the secured doors.

He returned to the open-air deck instead, where he could at least recollect the past night’s excitement if he couldn’t relive it. The gallery offered a much different setting in the daytime, bright with sunlight and not deserted as it had been, though neither was it crowded—the bite of wind was chilly enough to deter the less adventurous from taking their leisure there.

Standing at the railing—behind it, not hanging over, and off to one side—he looked at the ground passing so far below and thanked providence for Stiles’s intervention. With some distance from the horrible dinner of Kate’s unwelcome touches under the table and Gerard questioning Peter on his health as though he were breeding stock, he didn’t want to die. He wanted to escape on his own terms without endangering his family, and Stiles, wonderful Stiles, had given him a way.

It was almost like Peter had said when giving him permission to continue his affair, but in reverse: he only had to survive his misery long enough to give the Argents the heir they needed from him, then he could vanish with impunity. Stiles had sworn he’d keep track of Derek and would help him when the time came. _“Wouldn’t be the first time I faked someone’s death for them,”_ he’d said with a crooked grin.

Derek believed him; that he knew how to do it and that he would be able to do the same for him. The Argents were a prominent family in New York, so neither finding their estate nor reading the birth announcement should prove impossible. Most importantly, he believed Stiles would keep his word. Perhaps he was too quick to trust, but it was the most hope he had and something about Stiles inspired faith.

“Please don’t make me talk you down again,” a soft voice said beside him.

Though he hadn’t heard Stiles coming up, nor expected him to risk flouting the segregation of their positions in such occupied daylight, Derek didn’t flinch away from the surprise of his presence. He leaned into it instead, at least so far as was permissible in polite company; the closeness of friends in conversation, not the intimacy of lovers. Not that they were that, but—

But there was no reason they couldn’t be, if Stiles wanted it as badly as he did.

“Never again,” Derek promised. “I was thinking of you, though, and how I might find you again. I’m glad you saved me the necessity, for I’m sure I would’ve been hopeless at it.”

“You would’ve worked it out, I know you could have found a way. But I’m glad to have helped regardless. And glad to be in your thoughts; I wasn’t sure of my welcome today. I worried...” He fell unexpectedly silent, and when Derek looked over he had his lower lip caught between his teeth, eyes softly unfocused on the distance ahead of them. After a moment he twitched back, gaze meeting Derek’s, and smiled. “I worried you may have come to regret what passed between us last night.”

Stiles had worried but braved arrest to come to him anyway. Finding his own bravery in that, Derek turned away from the rail and toward Stiles, voice as low as he could drop it while still being heard as he answered, “Never. In fact, I thought—I hoped. My uncle has given me his assurances that he’ll be gone from our rooms until evening. We could retire there? To privacy.” He kept his eyes steadily on Stiles despite the heat rising in his cheeks.

Glancing at the few souls around them, none of whom took an interest in two young men enjoying the bright day, Stiles asked, “It’s not too great a risk?”

Perhaps it was, with Peter’s one caution being _don’t get caught_ , but if they were seen in the hallways they could spin a convincing lie between them. Once in the room, there would be no one to discover what was going on.

“No.” He itched to take Stiles by the hand and pull him, but settled for knowing Stiles was just behind him as he led the way through the corridors.

*

“My uncle may return soon,” Derek said mournfully when the haze of satiation from their second round of love-making had dwindled but the joy of sharing heat through bare skin had not. “He knows I’m—that I’ve met someone not my fiancée, but it’s still best that he not walk in on us.”

For all that Stiles had no desire to be caught in such a compromising position, he hated to leave Derek. It was only because Derek asked it that he was willing at all. And it helped knowing they would have other chances, stolen moments before the _Beacon_ docked and maybe after, then the rest of their lives once Derek was free of his obligations. Lifting his head from Derek’s chest, he drew their mouths together for a deep, sweet kiss before he had to give up his lover, however temporarily.

Their first kiss had been spontaneous and surprising—not bad, by any means, but chaste as far as such things went. No longer; Derek didn’t hesitate to open to Stiles, the heat of his mouth a welcome haven for Stiles’s tongue. He threw himself into kissing Stiles liked a man starved for affection, and Stiles had had little enough love of the romantic variety that he ached just as much in return.

When he’d claimed enough of Derek’s lips to see him through the next few minutes until he’d be locked apart from the temptation of them, Stiles tore himself away and left the sanctuary of the blankets. At first Derek exiting the bed as well surprised him, but then he started to retrieve and arrange his own clothes and it made sense; he wouldn’t want to meet his uncle naked, no matter what the man knew.

Stiles dallied longer than he should have, watching Derek fasten himself back into an approximation of a proper gentleman as though he was donning a suit of armor. It was only when Derek had his shirt most of the way buttoned and raised an expressive eyebrow at him that he turned his attention to himself. His pants were barely over his thighs when an explosion caused the whole zeppelin to quake and they both fell hard onto the floor.

Pushing up to his knees and pressing a hand to the wall for stability, Derek asked, “What was that?” even as a klaxon blared from the hallway. The noise of the alarm was enough to rouse the dead.

“Nothing good.” Stiles struggled to right himself and his trousers. “Something very, very bad,” he added as the world shook again, only mildly less violently.

Panicked voices added to the tumult outside, more and more with each passing second. Stiles cast about for his shirt but gave up the search as soon as the hysteria settled into two repeated phrases: “we’re going to crash” and “abandon ship”.

He had to get to Scott.

He had nothing but his trousers on and Derek lacked shoes, but he grabbed Derek’s arm and pulled him out of his shock toward the door regardless. “Get to the lifeballoons,” he shouted at Derek over the din in the hallway. “They launch from the gallery and all the boarding doors. Do you know what’s closest?”

“Yes,” Derek yelled back, pointing in the direction everyone else was crowding.

It was mayhem, people trying to flee through or over each other in their distress; more than one well-dressed woman crashed into the wall after being elbowed by another. The only reason he and Derek weren’t yet caught up in it was that they stood in the doorway before entering the press of bodies.

“Come on, Stiles!” Derek pulled again, but Stiles let go of his arm and shook his head.

“You go! I need to go down and make sure my brother makes it out. He has asthma, he’ll need me to get through the crowds.”

Derek did not go. He grabbed Stiles in a mirror of how they’d been before, heartbreak and desperation carved across his face. “I’m not going without you!” he insisted.

Though Stiles tried to shove him, to force him into the throng so that he’d been caught up with no choice, Derek’s extra muscle worked to his advantage. To his disadvantage, really, since his stubbornness was risking his life. “Go!” Stiles pleaded. “I’ll find you. On the balloons or wherever we land, I swear I’ll find you. But please, Derek, it’s safer if you go now.”

“I don’t care.” Derek dragged him in, heedless of how public they were; granted, no one seemed to have time to be perturbed by the passion with which he pressed his mouth to Stiles’s. “I’m only alive at all because of you. If it’s safe enough for you to swear you’ll find me, it’s safe enough for you to bring me with you.”

“Derek—”

The floor dropped several inches as the zeppelin tilted backward; the fire was making it through the forward bulkheads. They were running out of time.

Derek knew it, too. “The longer you argue with me, the less time we’ll both have. We need to get to your brother!”

He couldn’t risk Derek’s life—but he couldn’t leave Scott, either. Losing either man would kill him.

A cry of frustration ripped out of his chest, but Derek was right. They had to go quickly. “Fine. But if we get separated, promise me you’ll go to the balloons.”

Derek nodded but gripped his hand with the same white-knuckled tightness he’d held the railing with the first night they met. “I promise. Promise me you won’t let go.”

Stiles squeezed back and then they were moving, pushing their way against the stream of bodies. The crush of people thinned out as they got closer to the stairs. Further from the exits. At the first break in the crowd Stiles broke into a run. Derek followed, his grip on Stiles never wavering, and by the time they made it to the nearest stairwell the halls around them were empty. But the damned door was still locked, despite the emergency.

Slamming his palm against it in frustration, he told Derek, “I’m not trying to lose you, but I need both hands for this,” and Derek let go without question. They still lost more time than they had to spare, Stiles’s hands shaking as he struggled to force open locks that had given way easily when it hadn’t mattered.

After the third time he dropped his wire and snatched it back off the ground with a curse, Derek closed a warm hand over his shoulder; it calmed him despite the tremble in it and in Derek’s voice as he said, “You can do this. Slow down, breathe. I believe in you.” The touch of his lips to the back of Stiles’s neck helped, too.

Closing his eyes long enough to heave a shuddering breath, he focused in on his task and twisted just right to hear the click of the lock finally sliding open. He reached back for Derek’s hand before racing down the stairs; and down and down, until they reached the second from the lowest deck.

Two more bulkheads had burst by the time they reached the room he and Scott slept in and the _Beacon_ listed so steeply that they had to cling to the wall to keep from falling. The room was empty.

Stiles stared at the vacant beds in despair, but Derek was already pulling him back down the slanted hallway and saying, “I’m sure he made it, Stiles, someone else probably helped him, come on, we need to go now!”

The firm insistence of his hand cut through Stiles’s numbness more than the stream of reassuring words, so it only took another tug to get Stiles running in front of him again, leading the way to the nearest outside door. Something cracked several decks above them, louder than the exploding bulkheads but with less effect on the slope of the airship. The new breakage wasn’t entirely harmless, though; the ship started to drop more rapidly, a descent he could feel in the pit of his stomach.

“Come on!” he shouted over his shoulder, glad he could feel Derek’s presence and didn’t have to look back. “We’re nearly there.”

They put on a last burst of speed, struggle though it was to keep their footing on an ever-steeper hill that kept moving beneath them. But then there was light ahead—bright light, daylight, the way out. He heard Derek’s breathless “thank God” as they rounded the final turn and sprinted up the hallway—

And reached the door to find it empty, no basket waiting to carry them away from the wrecking _Beacon_. The hot air balloon was there, but just out of reach. Just far enough that no jump or throw of the rope could save them; just close enough that he could see Scott’s face in the midst of the crowd of refugees, red and devastated. But he couldn’t hear whatever it was Scott was trying to yell to them.

Derek’s hand shook in his and his voice broke as he whispered, “Stiles. What are we going to do?”

The ship continued to fall. Balloons loaded with people floated in the air above it, all too far and getting further with each second. The ground approached just as quickly, a featureless stretch of brown and green that filled in with fields and buildings, details that might have been reassuring had they not heralded the looming crash.

Stiles swallowed the lump in his throat and said, “We jump. When the ground gets close enough, we jump as far as we can and maybe...”

Maybe they’d clear the zeppelin. Maybe they’d break their fall enough. Maybe someone would come to search the wreckage. Maybe they’d survive.

“We jump,” he repeated, “and we don’t let go.”

Trees sprouted into focus, their branches bare of leaves with the late fall. The earth was coming up to meet them so fast; he wasn’t ready, but the world didn’t care about his feelings on the matter. Clenching Derek’s hand in his, he took a deep breath and yelled, “Jump!”


End file.
